This morning I woke up feeling kinda crappy, so I took my temperature, and it was 100. Not a real big deal for some, but for me it can be trouble. Any kind of infection, especially anything associated with my lungs, can really screw up my day. So I took a couple of pain reliever pills and waited it out. An hour or so later, it was down to about 99, and then later on back to normal. I still felt crappy, and
had pretty bad shortness of breath, but after another hour or so, I felt almost normal.

Along with all the other common COPD meds, I’ve spent the last month (year?) or so on a roller coaster of prednisone. Up, down, up, down. It really helps with the inflammation, and I reckon I’m used to the side effects by now. So as I was lying there in bed, my thoughts went from one thing to another, per usual. But this is really going to be a stretch…

While I was in the Army, I was a food inspector. While stationed in Germany, one of my jobs was to inspect beef for sale to the armed services, since the U.S.D.A. didn’t do it overseas. So, like most of you would, my mind skipped from thinking about my lungs to thinking about cow’s lungs! Anyway, it was a cool job. I was fortunate enough to learn some German language, make friends with some of the locals, and, most of all, became very adept at dodging various beef parts. You see, if I rejected a carcass or two, which meant that the slaughterhouse would lose money, I could sometimes find myself in the line of fire from various pieces of bovine anatomy. It wasn’t actually the lungs, but something easier to throw, like maybe a chunk of fat or something; but hey, I’m trying not to gross you out. Having said that, it was a really great job!

By far, my favorite job as a food inspector was when I inspected bacon; that, my friends, was heaven (Unlike being a wine taster, I didn’t spit it out). If I receive enough requests, I’ll tell you about my experiences working in a sausage plant.